


Observations on the House of Black

by ars_belli



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blackcest, F/F, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Pre-Canon, Second War with Voldemort, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_belli/pseuds/ars_belli
Summary: Bellatrix on her family history.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evandar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/gifts).



Grimmauld Place, again. Bellatrix Lestrange stood on the threshold, stretching her sense for any Order-left traps. Nothing. She felt slighted. Was an abode of the House of Black so worthless now? She waved herself through the door with a blast of magic. No house-elf to take her travelling cloak. No Sirius-borne hexes, or gifts from Regulus, or the cloying _eau de cologne_ of her dreary uncle. Just the snores from that portrait of her aunt. She sneezed abruptly at the dust. Why was there no bloody house-elf?  
"Mudbloods!" shrieked Aunt Walburga.  
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," she muttered, pushing past the hysterical portrait and up the staircase.  
"Blood traitors!" echoed around the first-floor landing. "Filth! In my house!"  
"You can talk, dearest Aunt," she muttered. "It sums up your branch of the family tree nicely!"  
She ran her fingers over her cousin's bedroom door. She had wanted quiet. What better place than here? _Do not enter without the express permission of Regulus_ —she and Sirius had laughed themselves silly about that, a lifetime ago. Bellatrix tapped her nails against the notice. Then she turned to the other room on that landing. The door opened with a creak, as if the house itself were pained. Embarrassed.  
"Did you have to possess such appalling taste in everything, cousin?" she sighed.  
Yet amongst the static, lewd posters and the photographs of Muggle paraphernalia and the trappings of an alien house—buried deep beneath all of that—lay all the hallmarks of a Black. She Conjured quill, parchment and ink; Summoned the family Pensieve from the depths of the attic, and sat cross-legged on the bed. The spell was an old friend by now, as ritual as the flowering, legal discourse of the quill; every memory ensuring that heirlooms went to the correct kin, that no-one was lost or cheated or forgotten, should the parchment be opened; not that she would live to see it, of course. Bellatrix trailed the hawthorne wand along her temples.  
_To Rodolphus Lestrange,_ usually ran the first clause of the enchanted quill. Her husband was dead now. _To Rabastan Lestrange, Avery, Nott, Wilkes, Rosier,_ all the same. Steadying her breathing, she allowed the wand to snag freely amongst her unkempt hair. _To Narcissa Malfoy, née Black,_ wrote the quill.

Her stomach felt as if it had been Transfigured to a nest of vipers. Not due to the treason, almost as beautiful as the stroke of this engagement providing a flawless alibi, but the fact that she was _late_. Cissy, as she lad long discovered, found temporary lateness to be an excellent excuse to make the subject mortally late.  
"They both belong to the Sacred Twenty-Eight," Bellatrix pointed out. "Why not swap?"  
"So does Weasley, and you wouldn't want to marry _him_."  
"No more than I want to marry the eminent Lucius, of the Noble and Most Peacocked House of Malfoy!"  
Bellatrix ducked the Charmed pillow, sending it zooming back at her attacker. Narcissa caught it on her cheek, not quite ducking in time, the unpinned half of her hair swinging around her neck, as carefree as her laugh. She was ridiculous, and beautiful and vital, and about to waste all of that on a Lestrange.  
"If I cannot marry whom I want, why should that stop you?" she continued.  
At the least, addressing Narcissa's problems distracted her from her own. Sirius, principally. Also treason.  
"Mmm," uttered her sister, around a mouthful of hair pins. "I simply do _not_ understand why my spells aren't working today. I'm usually much better at cosmetic charms than you."  
That made her laugh. Stalling for time, that was ever Narcissa. Even the most transparent excuse would do, even when they both knew the answer.  
"Hardly a high standard to match, Cissy," she returned lightly.  
"I might say the same about your standards in many things."  
"Except duelling, which is precisely why you won't!"  
"True," he sister replied. "At any rate, Lord Voldemort is definitely not part of the Twenty-Eight," she continued ruthlessly, "and as such—"  
"Would you like an _Engorgio_ charm on those pins, sweet sister?"  
At least Narcissa had the temerity to look abashed. She tucked the final strand away, lip twitching in an unspoken apology. Simultaneously, their attentions turned to the vases of flowers by the door. Striding over, Ballatrix inspected them. She ran her fingers over the silver card an the letters embossed within. _From the paterfamilias of the House of Malfoy, on the occasion of the betrothal of his first-born son Lucius._  
The other one was shorter: _To Narcissa Black, from Rodolphus Lestrange._ She sized that one. _One of us will be happy._  


The Slug Club at Christmas. A few alumni—the less famous, the more likely, given the other, better invitations available—an excess of mulled wine, nostalgia and bonhomie; everyone yearning for home and conjuring false cheer only by sheer inebriation. There was Slughorn, of course, holding court in his office armchair. The usual Slytherin group huddled in a corner, away from the clouds of purple, incense-bearing smoke from a recently-exploded cracker, looking mutinous. The Ravenclaw responsible staggered past her, wearing a fuchsia-coloured canary and a leer. No sign of Regulus. She plucked a goblet of something hot from a floating tray and a little honeyed pastry from another. Candied pineapple, ugh. Her occupied fingertips did prevent her from biting her nails. She swallowed rather more wine than was ladylike to disguise the taste.  
"This is Alecto," blurted a voice from her elbow. "Alecto Carrow, the reason I am late."  
"Regulus," she greeted pleasantly. "Your health."  
The trio toasted each other as if nothing were amiss. She considered her cousin with care. Had it been a risk, inviting him?  
"Sorry," he muttered to her shoes. "Potter's friend was trying to give Carrow detention. Lupin. For hexing a few Mudbloods, can you imagine?"  
"And you were her knight in goblin-forged armour, dear cousin?"  
It was like looking at Sirius through a crystal ball. Everything about Regulus was more blurred, tarnished with uncertainty, not quite as fine. Although he looked like a pre-Raphelite beauty next to his impromptu guest. A _Carrow_ , honestly! One of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but that was their sole claim to fame.  
"But how rude of me!"  
She turned to their guest, all smiles, the same smile that graced her lips on the duelling floor.  
"Miss Carrow, I am always pleased to make new ties. Particularly in the Lower House, for us Pure-bloods must stay resolute in our traditions, in both tiers of the Wizengamot. Don't you agree, Regulus?"  
He shrugged, spilling wine onto one of his cuffs with the motion. Clearly it was doing nothing for his nerves.  
"She _is_ a girl, Bella, don't be so…." he ventured. "There won't be many in our parliament, not with all those Muggle-lovers."  
"You sound like those Muggle-borns," she seethed. "Women can't do anything in their world. I hear that they can't even vote."  
"That's why we're here," he snapped, "Isn't it, cousin?"  
She blinked at the sudden edge of defiance. Not that she ought to find blame in it, but she did. Oh, cousin Reggie hadn't done anything in particular, more the pity, but he was no Sirius, and there was no counter-curse for that. There had been Sirius with her, at her inaugural Slug Club. Not this pale copy, who stared meekly into his goblet.  
"We are indeed fortunate that such tendencies have not yet expanded into the Wizengamot, Miss Black."  
She whirled abruptly. The voice weighed upon her earlobe like a priceless earring. Slughorn hovered a few feet away, clutching one plump hand in the other, blinking. Flakes of pastry clung to her fingers, sticky from the sweet, yet the stranger brushed his lips over her knuckles all the same. She felt giddy from too much wine, too fast. None of it mattered. Not when she had the strength to catch those strange, red eyes, and match his stare.  
"Quite so, my Lord."  
Bellatrix hesitated only a fraction.  
"Permit me to introduce my cousin Regulus, the heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."  


"Nice one, James!"  
The shout rang not in her ears, but through her entire being. The Potter boy flickered across her field of view, a sudden intrusion into her battlefield which provoked a burst of laughter at cousin Sirius's mistake. She might have killed him then. It would be so easy, the two words lying in ambush behind her lips, the green jet of light reaching to strike down her Lord's nemesis once and for all—yet he could wait.  
The dance had never brought her and Sirius together before.  
Magic had instead conspired to keep them apart. Fate was cruel, she had always thought. Unnecessarily so, when the two of them would have made such a fine match, once, a sentiment echoed by a hundred Hogwarts students in the whispers of a hundred practice duels. Yet the battle lines had given the pair nothing more than an endless, unspirited dance with countless, worthless partners. Cruel, yes, but had the waiting not made this duel all the sweeter? A trio of spells shot past her like a cluster of blazing comets.  
"May I have the honour?" he called.  
She laughed again. Sirius had sought her out. Why, she even dodged his next curse with a curtsey.  
"Wtih pleasure!" she echoed.  
And for the first time since Azkaban, Bellatrix felt truly _alive_.  


Breaking the spell felt like drowning in reverse. The ache in her chest dimmed, even as the darkness of the Department of Mysteries lessened, the memories reluctantly loosening their grip as she stretched towards light and air and the rush of the present. Yet the world did not set itself immediately into motion. Instead there was the Dark Lord. Whatever remained of him was sufficient, still, even now, even after her failures. His proximity drew her to uncurl herself from the bed and stand closer still, her star in some inexorable orbit to the dark centre of its galaxy waiting to swallow her whole. The Dark Lord reached out as if to brush an ill-disciplined curl of hair behind her ear. Instead the memory wound sinuously around his fingers: _Sirius would have made such a fine Death Eater._


End file.
